


Stayin' Alive

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Humor, Ridiculous, Sexual Humor, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8055610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: Teaming up makes sense when she specializes in botany and he just fashioned a katana out of PVC pipe and a shoelace.





	Stayin' Alive

Sometimes, Marie wondered just how she managed to get so far up shit creek without a paddle. Because, of course, knowing her luck, she’d be the one person in a zombie Apocalypse who had been late to the memo. And now, she was running for her damn life from a herd of zombies currently moving approximately .3 miles an hour but, still, it was damn terrifying no matter what anyone said. 

She cursed her lack of zombie survival plan. One of her ex-boyfriends had been absolutely obsessed with it all but Marie had only ever been interested in the now: not in some hypothetical Armageddon that could potentially swallow them all whole. And, besides, she’d reasoned with herself in the past: if she got eaten, at least she wouldn’t have to pay her student loans.

She wasn’t laughing now, however. The last thing she was doing was laughing. She was too out of breath to laugh, her bag long abandoned somewhere in the barn that she’d thought she’d secured.

That was the problem with being in a small town, away from all your family, working on your Masters Thesis in bumfuck nowhere: there was no one around for miles, no alliance to make, no one to really watch her back. Which, in hindsight, is probably why she’d nothing of the town being abandoned, anyway. The last time she’d seen her neighbors, it was when their goat got loose. They’d traveled four miles to see her, and the goat had eaten her laundry, too.

But she’d take goats any day over this. She was lucky that she’d grown up with several brothers who liked to play pranks on her, because when she heard even the slightest rustle of something big enough to break a branch, she was up and semi-disoriented, trying to make sense of what the hell was happening.

And what had happened was Ms. Suzy Sue from seventeen billion miles down the street had turned into zombie chow and was planning to swallow her whole.

Not much disorientation going on after that. Marie’d scrambled to her feet, leaving her sleeping bag behind as well as one of her several canteens of water and utilized her high school track skills to, as one of her friends would once say, get the fuck out of there. 

Her chest burned as she jumped over a log, her legs stinging with the exertion. But she knew the ache in her ribcage wasn’t from the run, but from remembering her friends. Fuck, where were they? Were they safe? She hoped that they weren’t stuck doing what she was doing: running and running, all alone. She’d come to this damn ghost town,away from all familiar to her, because the university had offered her the nicest stipend. So she’d packed all her things and made off immediately, saying goodbye to all her friends.

And that was the most dangerous part of it all, really. That she had no one.

Marie ducked her head, trying not to inhale all the dust she was kicking up, and wondering if the next place she’d spot would be infested, too. The good part about small towns was that there were less people, so there were less zombies. The bad part was that there was less everything.

So, when she saw the house, large and looming, she figured she’d take her damn chances.

She looked behind her, seeing that the horde she’d once believed was following her had thinned down to just a few stragglers, the fastest of them all, hobbling after her, rotting in the sun. She shuddered, compartmentalized the sight, and made her way up the dirt bath to the door.

Only to find that, of fucking course, it was locked. 

Marie shook the doorknob, as though just twisting it a bit could possibly open it.

She didn’t have it in her to keep running. She’d been running for at least two miles. And being out of high school, she’d put on a good twenty pounds that went straight to her ass, all accumulated through Cheetos and too much comfort eating. 

Oh, god. She was gonna die. She was gonna die by the slowest moving horde, ever. She was going to die on the doorstep of some house she couldn’t afford in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and she didn’t even have her master’s yet and she was _fat_ and-

She heard a quiet curse from inside and gasped, finally working through her hyperventilation to realize an argument was happening.

“-can’t just leave her out there, Stein!”

“And why no-”

“She needs help-”

“We have no supplies-”

Marie slammed her palm against the door. “Hey!” she hollered. “Let me in!”

There was silence for a moment and Marie felt her patience thin, all the adrenaline in her body making her furious. She banged her hand against the door even harder. “They’re gonna eat me, goddamnit! Let me in!”

“Stein-”

A low, deadpan voice, Stein, she assumed, rang out sarcastically. “What’s the magic word?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m gonna die out here! Jesus Christ will you just-”

“Stop fucking around, Stein!” another male voice called out, and before she knew it, the door flew open, a tall, redheaded man in a police uniform standing before her, armed to the teeth with enough guns to make an artillery jealous. Marie gasped out a ‘Thank you!’ before she ducked beneath his arm and he stepped forward. 

“And where,” the same sarcastic drawl said, “do you think you’re going, Spirit?”

“She brought three of those motherfuckers,” Spirit, she assumed, said. “Someone’s gotta end them, and it won’t be you, lazyass.”

“With a gunshot? You’ll attract everything here,” he said, all too rationally. Irritatingly rationally. But when Marie turned to look at him, her mouth went dry. She’d seen him, before, at her university. Or, rather, at her apartment after they hooked up during one of the most ridiculous parties she’d ever gone to. Her cheeks pinked. God, she was a grown woman. What was she doing getting flustered over a hookup?

But, even beyond that, he was currently fashioning what looked like a katana out of a shoelace and some pvc pipe.

“Yes, well, maybe Maka will come, too,” Spirit said.

Stein, Marie assumed, sighed, tying the PVC closer together with the shoelace. “Wow, you’re dumb,” he said simply, before throwing the impromptu weapon at him. Marie shouted “Think fast!” and Spirit just managed to turn around before it slammed into his back.

“Jesus Christ, Stein!”

“Moses, actually,” Stein said, easily, and Marie’s eyes focused on his open collar, where she could see the Star of David hanging from his throat. He never took it off, really. Even though he’d told her that he didn’t practice anymore when they-

When she looked up at his eyes, they had a knowing glint in them, and she puffed out her cheeks, turning to see Spirit make his way out, looking at Stein for a moment before he closed the door behind him and Marie slumped, settling herself down in the floor. Trying to tell herself that the reason that her heart was still pounding so hard was from the running.

“…so,” she said, eloquently.

“I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes still on.”

Marie swears she’d sent sparks into the air with how hard she glared at him. “Fuck off. Is that why you didn’t open the door for me?”

Stein shrugged. “Didn’t check the peephole.”

“You were just going to let someone die out there?”

“Clearly I didn’t,” he informed her, sitting down near the window and pushing the curtain to the side so he could see what she assumed was his friend.

“No, clearly your…your partner didn’t,” she said, the subtle question not lost on Stein

“He’s waiting for his wife and daughter to show up,” Stein replied.

Marie’s heart throbbed. “Oh.”

Stein cracked his neck, looking at where she sat on the floor. “Comfortable?”

“Don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“You’re traveling alone," Stein guessed, and Marie chewed on her cheek.

“Yeah.”

“With no supplies."

“They're gone,” she told him, shrugging and pulling her arms around herself. Stein looked at her for a long moment.

“What did you study?”

Marie looked up. “What?”

“At the university.”

“Oh…uh…Biology. With a focus on botany.”

Stein nodded. “Useful, considering the situation.”

She felt her skin warm from his compliment. “Um…thanks. What about you?”

“Medicine.”

“You want to be a doctor?”

His glasses glinted as he tilted his head. “Coroner.”

“Very topical,” she said dryly.

“Yes, well, the knowledge has allowed me to survive thus far.”

Marie nodded, folding her knees close to her, her dirt stained leggings a far cry from the slinky party dress she’d first met him in. “Ditto.”

“Hat’s off for being pre-regurgitated zombie food,” he said, and Marie huffed.

“Is now really the time for jokes?”

“When is it not?”

Marie shook her head, setting her cheek onto her knee. The silence stretched for a moment and Stein glanced outside once more, nodding as though to inform Marie that everything was alright. 

Really, she was lucky she knew him. Had been…well, with him before. Else she’d likely be completely screwed. A woman traveling on her own was dangerous even before the sudden plague of flesh-eating monsters. Now, not only does she have to look out for men who used the sudden anarchy to their disgusting advantage, but also people looking to literally eat her and-

“Your skill-set would be a useful asset to any group you join,” Stein said, looking at her with something peculiar in his eyes, and she looked at him critically. 

“Is that so?”

“Mhm,” he said. “And, frankly, judging from your lack of weapon and supplies, I’d say my skill-set would likely be useful to you, as well.”

Marie blinked at him. “Are you…propositioning me?”

“If that’s what you’d like to call it.”

“Are you asking me to stay with you?” she asked, bluntly. It was something she’d wanted to ask him when they first hooked up, too. But she was too scared to stick around, too nervous to start up another relationship. Sure, she’d spoken to him, before that night, and she’d found him inexplicably attractive, but she’d been burned before and she just-

“Yes, I am,” he responded, equally as blunt, but not unkind, and she looked at him for a long while before she smiled, her chest feeling light and happy. 

“Only if you use some of that skill-set to make me a hammer.”

Stein’s lips tipped up before he grinned at her creepily, leaning back. “Are you telling me you want to bang?”

Marie’s face went bright red, and she opened her mouth to reply, but Spirit banged the door open, breathing hard. “Well, that’s taken care…of…” he said, looking from one of them to the other, clearly taking in Stein’s smug expression and Marie’s blush. “Did I miss something?”

Marie swallowed hard, trying to hide her blush, and Stein grinned. “No,” he said, not breaking eyes contact with Marie. “Nothing at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a prompt over on tumblr! These just keep getting more and more silly.


End file.
